Breakthrough
by pinkbelle
Summary: What would've happened if Meredith and Derek had been together during the 'It's the End of the World  As We Know it ' plot in season 2?


Hey guys! Okay, so this is basically a redo of the bomb plot (season 2 spoilers for 'It's the End of the World' and '(As We Know it)' if you haven't seen them! In this one though, Meredith and Derek ARE together. I'm pretending the whole 'Addison' thing didn't happen(: Hope you like it!

-Lucy xoxo

"Dr Shepherd, you and your OR staff need to be evacuated." Dylan was now losing his patience with the stubborn surgeon in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of his chest, narrowing his eyes as if to show he wasn't kidding around.

"And as I told you, _I_ am not leaving. The Chief may have ordered it, but the Chief doesn't scare me. Dr Bailey scares me, and if I let her husband die just to get myself to safety? I couldn't live with myself." Derek turned to face the staff in the OR. "I'm not going to stop anyone from going. Anyone who wants to go, leave now, I won't hold it against you."

When only two nurses walked out, Derek smiled, before he noticed someone standing next to him, holding his scalpel, and he felt his heart drop, and a wave of fear come over him.

"Meredith. You're going." He whispered under his breath, moving closer to her.

She looked up, a frown on her face. "What? Why do I have to leave, I'm choosing to stay here!"

Derek looked at her with pleading eyes. "Mer…please. I can't," he looked at Tucker's still form on the OR table, the steady _beep_ of his heart rate coming over the display screen, "I can't do this with you here. I can't focus."

Meredith looked at the ground, and when she looked up Derek was shocked to see tears in her eyes. "And you think I'll be able to focus with _you_ here?" She took a step forward so she was standing right in front of him, looking up into his eyes with her tear-filled own. "You have a choice. Either we both stay, or we both go."

Derek looked at the woman in front of him, who had just admitted she couldn't lose him either, but he knew what he had to do.

He cleared him throat, and took a step back. "Dr Grey, I am ORDERING you to leave this OR. Now, leave." He knew that if he didn't make her leave, he wouldn't be able to focus on Tucker's surgery, and he would probably kill him.

Meredith shook her head in disbelief, the movement causing several tears to fall. "Fine," she said, her voice breaking in the middle of the word. She turned slowly and went out the door Dylan was still holding open, stopping only to look at Derek, before continuing down the hall.

"You did the right thing; at least I know some of you surgeons can follow instructions. Let's just hope paramedics are the same way." Dylan said, adjusting the strap on his bomb vest.

The word 'paramedic' brought Meredith back to earth, and she wiped the last few tears from her eyes.

"How is the paramedic? Does she _really_ have her hand on the bomb?" She asked.

Dylan stopped in front of an OR door, the one where Hannah, Burke and Cristina were, and put his hand on it to push it open.

"Yeah," he replied, and then pointed to the elevator at the end of the hallway. "Now, go."

However, once he pushed the door open, Meredith heard a girl, speaking very quickly and in a panicked tone.

"No, I can't do this!" She heard the girl say, "I'm only 22!"

She saw Cristina standing next to her, trying to calm her down, and ran in to stand on the other side of her.

"Hannah, Hannah, listen to me." Dylan called from the other side of the OR table. "If you pull that hand out you'll detonate the device, and that probably will kill you. Keep it in there and we can make sure that doesn't happen." Thankfully, he didn't seem to have noticed Meredith, and was just focused on making sure Hannah didn't cause them all to be blown sky-high.

"I'm just, I'm just gonna take it out. No big deal, it'll be fine." She then pulled her hand out, and Cristina, Burke and Dylan all threw themselves to the floor, Burke throwing a hand over Cristina to make sure she stayed down.

Meredith, in the split-seconds she had to think, pushed her hand into the spot where Hannah's had been immediately, knowing if she didn't the bomb would explode. Hannah fled the room, leaving behind a single bloody hand print by the door, and then Meredith realised how stupid what she had just done was.

Burke, Cristina and Dylan all sat up, confused as to why nothing had happened. Once they stood up, they saw Meredith and all gasped, Cristina throwing her hand over her mouth.

"What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?" Meredith whispered to herself repeatedly, eyes scrunched closed, and thinking of all the stupid things she'd done in her life, but this was definitely the stupidest.

Dylan approached her slowly, so as not to scare her. "You have no idea how stupid that was," he said, angry with himself for letting someone get into this situation.

Meredith opened her eyes and looked at him. "I think I do, actually. But it's not as stupid as letting us all get blown up."

Dylan half-laughed. "I guess so. Well, we're going to need to put a flak jacket on you."

…

Once Dylan had come back with a jacket, he went to put it on Meredith, and just as Cristina made a move to go and help, Burke caught her elbow.

"What?" She asked, looking over at her best friend before turning her gaze to Burke.

"Leave." He said directly. "Please, I just…I can't do this with you here."

Cristina looked back at Meredith, who was now looking at them. "Seriously, Cristina, go. I'll be fine."

Cristina turned back to Burke, as if to come up with a reason she needed to stay, but then decided to say something else. Just as she was nearly at the door, she turned back to say something to him, pulling his next to her so he was the only listener.

"You know how in movies, there's always the hero who runs towards danger, and then the other guy who runs away from it?" She asked, voice weaker than usual but still firm.

"Yeah?" He responded, not sure where she was going.

"Be the other guy." She said, and then walked out the door.

…

Now with just three in the room, suddenly the terrified silence radiating from everyone was prominent.

Meredith swallowed, fighting once again to keep the tears now filling her eyes from spilling over.

"You've got a plan to get me out of this, right?" She asked, looking from Dylan to Burke. "I'm going to get out of this alive, aren't I?"

Sensing she was about to panic, Dylan walked over to her slowly followed closely by Burke.

"Dr Grey," Dylan said quietly, "we have a plan. We're going to get you out of this, but you need to stay calm, and not move a single muscle."

Meredith nodded, trying to keep her hand from shaking.

Burke's pager went off, and looking down at it, he handed it to Dylan. "It's from the Chief," Burke said, "I think you should go. I'll stay with Dr Grey." Looking at the young, scared woman in front of him, Burke felt a surge of anger towards Hannah, who although she was younger and more afraid than Meredith, had caused his girlfriend's best friend, one of his interns, to be put in a position he couldn't have imagined in a million years.

"Alright," Dylan replied, and proceeded to walk out of the OR.

Meredith looked at Burke. "Is this the weirdest thing that's ever happened in your OR?" She asked.

Burke half-laughed. "Yes, I think it is."

Meredith nodded. "Good, because I'm very competitive."

…

After leaving the OR with the bomb, Cristina walked up and down the hallway several times, before stopping outside of an OR she knew was still occupied.

Pushing open the door, she attracted the attention of Dr Shepherd.

"Yang, what're you doing here? The OR's been evacuated, you need to leave." Derek said to Cristina while still concentrating on Tucker.

"So do you." Cristina replied, pulling on a scrub gown and gloves, and walking over to Derek.

He looked up at her. "You really want to stay?"

She nodded. Derek returned his focus to the patient, and she moved to stand beside him, taking the suction from the stand as he asked for it.

"You were in the OR with the bomb, weren't you?" Derek asked, having heard that there was a girl stuck inside the patient's body cavity with her hand on the bomb.

Cristina sucked in her breath quickly. She could see two options: Option 1, tell McDreamy the truth and have him freak out; Option two, lie, and if anything went wrong (she prayed to God nothing would), she would be the reason Meredith never got to say goodbye to Derek and vice-versa. She decided to go with option 1 for now.

"Everything's fine," she replied, hoping her voice sounded steady, "the girl's doing fine."

"Good," Derek said quietly, returning his full focus to Tucker.

…

Dylan walked back into the OR, a grim expression on his face, and he turned to Burke and the two started whispering, a frown appearing on Burke's face.

Meredith let out a sigh. "You don't need to do that." She said.

Dylan looked up at her. "Do what?"

"Whisper," she replied, "I'm not a patient, I can handle it."

Exchanging a glance with Burke, he turned to face Meredith.

"There's an oxygen line that runs to the entire OR floor, directly above this one." He gestured at the ceiling.

Meredith grasped the problem immediately. "So if the bomb blows up, we…"

Dylan finished her sentence for her. "The entire hospital goes up."

Meredith looked from Burke to Dylan. "So what're we going to do? We can't do anything about that!"

"We're going to try and move to another OR," Dylan said calmly. He then turned to Burke once again. "You need to go. We want to keep numbers as low as possible, and you being here isn't helping. Once we've moved to the OR, we'll page you immediately."

Burke nodded, and walked out of the door.

…

Cristina was holding a scalpel when she noticed movement outside of the OR window, and put the scalpel down on the stand.

"I'll be right back," she said, running out of the door.

When she saw the scene in front of her, she raced over to it.

"What the hell are you doing?" She addressed the question mainly to Dylan, but was looking at Meredith when she asked it.

Meredith answered. "We're moving to a different OR because of the oxygen line so that if anything happens we don't, you know" she shrugged slightly, "blow the whole hospital up."

Dylan frowned at Cristina. "Didn't Burke send you away already?"

"Well, what Burke doesn't know won't hurt him." She replied, immediately walking across from Meredith, but not touching the OR table.

"Cristina, distract me." Meredith ordered suddenly.

"What?" Cristina asked, confused.

"I have my hand on a bomb, I might die today, and most importantly I have to pee. I need to be distracted."

Cristina searched her mind for something unimportant to comply to her best friend's request with. "Burke told me he loved me."

Meredith looked up. "Really? Did you say it back?"

Cristina scoffed in response. "No, he said it to sleeping me. That means I don't have to say it back."

Suddenly, the three went deadly silent as the OR table hit a bump.

Dylan glared at the women in front of him. "A little more focus, please?"

…

Once she had seen Meredith had safely made it into the new OR, and when she had seen Burke going in, she returned to Derek's OR, where the team were almost finished.

"So, how's the girl with the bomb?" He asked again, taking Cristina off guard.

When he got no response, he asked again. "Hannah, how is she?"

Cristina exhaled. "Meredith. The girl with the bomb, is Meredith."

Derek whipped his head up to look at her, and dropped the scalpel. "What?" He whispered.

"She was on her way up, when Hannah started to panic. She pulled her hand out, and Meredith put her own in, stopping the bomb from going off."

Derek barely heard what Cristina said, as he yanked the headlight off, pulling his scrub cap off too in the process, and as he ran out the door he ripped his surgical gown off too, trying to take his gloves off. Pulling a hand through his hair, he looked around, trying to find the OR Meredith was in, before he finally came to the right one.

…

Once they were finally in the OR, Meredith was being briefed on what was going to happen for the second time.

"Once Dr Burke makes the incision, you're going to pull out the device, keeping it level. Don't tilt it, don't tip, don't move it an inch, just pull it out flat."

Meredith nodded, but before anyone could do anything to progress further, the OR door burst open.

"Meredith," Derek breathed, stopping still just in front of the door.

Meredith's eyes were filled with disbelief, and Dylan looked angry.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" He demanded, moving towards Derek.

"Cristina told me Hannah left, she told me it was Meredith with the bomb." Derek's voice was calmer now, now he had seen that Meredith, for the moment, was safe.

Dylan sighed, rolling his eyes, and pointed to the corner of the room by the door.

"If you're not going to leave," he said, "you stay there. You don't move, you don't say anything, you stay there. Got it?"

Derek nodded, and Meredith couldn't take her eyes off of him. Suddenly, Dylan was in front of her, and the next thing she knew Burke had made the incision. Everyone sounded so far away.

She put the tightest grip she could on the rocket-shaped explosive, and when she saw Burke's lips move, although she couldn't hear him, she knew he was telling her to take it out. She raised it as level as possible, and as gently as she could, and before she knew it, it was out of her hands, and she was in Derek's arms. Her hearing came back. The bomb was gone.

'Ohmygod, Meredith,' she heard Derek whisper into her hair, he was clutching her tightly to his body, as if he didn't want to let her go.

After a few minutes, he pulled back, still holding her, but so that he could look at her. He put his hands on either side of her face. 'Do you have any idea how worried I was when Cristina told me it was you? You can't do things like this without telling me! I need to know, okay?'

She nodded, still feeling numb, but this time when he pulled her close again, she held onto him too, holding him as tightly as she could.

'I love you,' Derek whispered into her ear.

She blinked back the tears in her eyes. 'I love you too.'

And that was when she knew it would be okay. Derek would make sure it was.


End file.
